I'm a bit distraught and dreading the Thanksgiving/family get together this year. Last year my 4 year old (now 5) went to granny's house as we had last minute car problems and were unable to make it. I'm a bit concerned about my cousin's child who will be there-it's family... it's so much harder to address the issue without the "well, what was your kid doing to cause him to behave that way?" speech from them because they tend to think of their children as perfect it seems almost, and refuse to believe that there may be something that needs to be checked into. The kid was 7 years old and couldn't do the alphabet still, was held in first grade 2 times, and his fam just said that it was because the teacher didn't like him.
When he came back last year, granny enlightened me with some lovely stories of his toys getting broken (as his toys are the only ones in the house) by my cousin's child, for no real reason. He was also apparantly running around like a lunatic, calling names, throwing everything around. Christmas came along... rinse, repeat. Same incidents. Just from these stories, I could almost laugh, because I could see my own driving granny crazy and things getting exaggerated...
Easter came around and we went (all of us this time), in which during the time, I saw him taking bubble wands and putting them near my daughter's eyes as I and many others told him repeatedly to stop-his own mother and grandmother said nothing... didn't even acknowledge what was going on and we had told them both a few times, announced it loudly when explaining to anyone what had happened in hopes that someone would bother to say something to him... but nothing. He was also running around with baseball bats, etc., and pretending to swing them at my daughter's head (well, until I finally grabbed his wrist, yanked the thing away and locked it into my aunt's storage shed telling him I didn't care how much he wanted to whine-don't come to me, tell his mom and not to forget to tell her what he was doing at the time it was taken).
A few weeks later, granny went to visit them and took my son with her... which seemed to be a decent visit until he got hit in the ear with a broomstick, leaving a huge bruise on the side of his head.
About a week after that, we receive a phone call stating he broke his grandpa's tooth in half with a toy because he was too tired to play with him at that exact moment.
Now, my son is no angel, and up until recently, I always tried to investigate what he did beforehand, but after witnessing some of this stuff, it makes mine look like an angel. Mine does spitting, calls names and all (no diagnosis of any sort, so not sure why-still waiting on his pediatrician appointment. for a referral of any sort), but if it comes to anything like a child taking a toy away from him or anything, he doesn't stand up for himself at all... he will willingly hand it over normally-very rarely coming to tell me that he had it first unless it's his own sister taking it from him, of course.
We have prearranged going over there for Thanksgiving (to my mom's), and weren't sure, but now we know that the rest of the family is coming over for sure... I can't just say no to going, but we are brainstorming on ideas to keep things calm and under control. Any tips at all would be most helpful as right now, our hands are kind of tied and we are just praying that someone controls him this time when we go.
by the way, not meaning to vent harshly as I know these scenarios probably meet the standards of all of our children combined-both my cousin's boy and my own. It's just really rough trying to know what to do at a family gettogether when he is let go and no one is bothering to check into it no matter what he does...
When he came back last year, granny enlightened me with some lovely stories of his toys getting broken (as his toys are the only ones in the house) by my cousin's child, for no real reason. He was also apparantly running around like a lunatic, calling names, throwing everything around. Christmas came along... rinse, repeat. Same incidents. Just from these stories, I could almost laugh, because I could see my own driving granny crazy and things getting exaggerated...
Easter came around and we went (all of us this time), in which during the time, I saw him taking bubble wands and putting them near my daughter's eyes as I and many others told him repeatedly to stop-his own mother and grandmother said nothing... didn't even acknowledge what was going on and we had told them both a few times, announced it loudly when explaining to anyone what had happened in hopes that someone would bother to say something to him... but nothing. He was also running around with baseball bats, etc., and pretending to swing them at my daughter's head (well, until I finally grabbed his wrist, yanked the thing away and locked it into my aunt's storage shed telling him I didn't care how much he wanted to whine-don't come to me, tell his mom and not to forget to tell her what he was doing at the time it was taken).
A few weeks later, granny went to visit them and took my son with her... which seemed to be a decent visit until he got hit in the ear with a broomstick, leaving a huge bruise on the side of his head.
About a week after that, we receive a phone call stating he broke his grandpa's tooth in half with a toy because he was too tired to play with him at that exact moment.
Now, my son is no angel, and up until recently, I always tried to investigate what he did beforehand, but after witnessing some of this stuff, it makes mine look like an angel. Mine does spitting, calls names and all (no diagnosis of any sort, so not sure why-still waiting on his pediatrician appointment. for a referral of any sort), but if it comes to anything like a child taking a toy away from him or anything, he doesn't stand up for himself at all... he will willingly hand it over normally-very rarely coming to tell me that he had it first unless it's his own sister taking it from him, of course.
We have prearranged going over there for Thanksgiving (to my mom's), and weren't sure, but now we know that the rest of the family is coming over for sure... I can't just say no to going, but we are brainstorming on ideas to keep things calm and under control. Any tips at all would be most helpful as right now, our hands are kind of tied and we are just praying that someone controls him this time when we go.
by the way, not meaning to vent harshly as I know these scenarios probably meet the standards of all of our children combined-both my cousin's boy and my own. It's just really rough trying to know what to do at a family gettogether when he is let go and no one is bothering to check into it no matter what he does...
